Christopher, If you are close to Berlin, there’s a SmartOS meetup coming soon: http://www.meetup.com/SmartOS/events/212597122 <http://www.meetup.com/SmartOS/events/212597122>
Blake > On Nov 7, 2014, at 10:52 AM, Christopher J. Ruwe via smartos-discuss > <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Do, 2014-11-06 at 10:46 -0500, John Grasty via smartos-discuss wrote: >>> That said, if *CPU* power consumption is a major factor, generally >>> this is mostly automatic, as modern CPUs generally “race” to >>> complete work so that they can enter deeper C states. However, deep C >>> states have been known to be the cause of many problems in certain >>> types of network appliance configurations, to the point that best >>> practice is often to disable deep C states. (Again, in a data center >>> environment, this isn’t a big deal.) >> >> I'm a newbie in the smartOS/illumos world. I have a FreeNAS mini (from >> ixsystems) that I wanted to convert to a smartOS server for my home. >> It's based on an Asrock C2750D4I motherboard with an 8-core Intel Avoton >> C2750 CPU. It's a low power setup, and I thought that I would experiment >> with reenabling deep C states to save even more. >> >> Yep. Less than 24 hours later fmd was alerting me to problems with >> missed interrupts. (Wow! Fault management in illumos is amazing compared >> to everything else that I have used--FreeBSD and Linux.) I reverted to >> the stock configuration from SmartOS, and everything went back to >> normal. The extra dollar or two a month for power is ok with me. >> >> Trust the experts that have responded (Keith W. and Garret D.). They >> really do know what they are talking about. >> >> >> Thanks, >> John Grasty >> > > Thanks for that info. > > To put my search into perspecive (I skipped that part for brevity's > sake, I see now that it is necessary), I am looking for a 24/7 private > lab server with a low amount of "production load", namely, a > virtualized pfSense firewall. > > That lab server should power several applications wich are normally > absolute overhead for a SOHO setting, e.g. a log server, LDAP/Kerberos > and so on for me to experiment with. > > As it is a home and/or lab setting, the system will be mostely > idling. Because I want low-overhead virtualization, that leaves me > with Solaris Zones and FreeBSD jails. I do not have experience with > that Linux LXE stuff and am (perhaps unfairly so, but I have been > bitten) deeply suspcicious of Linuxes. > > In addition, being a lab server, I sometimes need a hypervisor based > virtualization for testing and at least in one instance for > "production", i.e. the firewall. > > In the future I am thinking of a putting a very small DMZ on that > thing, so I need excellent network virtualization. > > That points at first on something Solaris based (Zones, KVM, Crossbow) > and maybe with some fiddling at FreeBSD (Jails, BeHyVe [???] and > netmap [???]). Software-wise I am more happy with FreeBSD ports, but > pkgsrc is an option and then I need to learn something. OK, there are > worse things. > > I perfectly understand that the low power issue is an absolute > non-issue for SmartOSes datacenter application ecological > niche. However, I think for what I plan to do, SmartOS is ideal as > well, save for all these complications with power. 30W to 40W are OK, > 80W way to much. I am living in Germany and we play "Energiewende" > here (electricity just comes out of the wall and we can switch off all > nuclear or coal fueled power plants), so electricity is expensive and > I expect prices to rise. > > So I hope that puts my crazy quest a bit into perspective and makes > it sound less crazy. > > @John: I trust that you do not use the six additional SATA ports > powered by that Marvell controllers, of those I experienced one not to > work and have read about the other being unspoorted (OpenIndiana > HCL). Am I reading you correctly? > > Another question: Have you enanbeld and then disabled C-power states > in BIOS or systemwise on SmartOS? Regardless of which option, which > states do you use? > > In any case, many many thanks for that pointer at the Asrock board, I > would not have thought about something that highly powered, but I > think that is the right option. > > @Keith and @Garret: Many, many thanks for your helpful critique of my > ideas and for mentioning these failures I would have run in sometime > in the future. > > Many thanks and cheers, have a nice weekend! > -- > Christopher > > > > > ------------------------------------------- > smartos-discuss > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/184463/=now > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/184463/=now> > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/184463/26679658-d7bb2457 > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/184463/26679658-d7bb2457> > Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > <https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;> > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com <http://www.listbox.com/> ------------------------------------------- smartos-discuss Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/184463/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/184463/25769125-55cfbc00 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=25769125&id_secret=25769125-7688e9fb Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
